Band Saw Blade Tension

Hi Everyone.. I was reading the Timber Wolf web site recently and it said that you should always “Detention” your blade at the end of every work day. It goes on to explain the reasons for this and they make perfect sense. Somewhere along the line I missed this and I have never detentioned my blade. I am just curious as to how many of you do this.

On my big bandsaw, I have a lever that releases the tension easily, so it just takes a second, on the smallershopsmith, I have to use the standard hex key to release tension, so I drilled a hole in the side of the coverand made a small window in it to see the tension bar to make it easier to do and remember. I believe thenewer shopsmiths have added these features. I detension the blades after each usage, before I shove thesaws out of the road to put my pickup in the shop for the night.

I didn’t de-tension for a long time…and a piece ended up breaking on my Jet bandsaw, when I started woodworking again. I was fortunate that they still had spare parts for my older saw and I have faithfully taken better care of it this time around. Bandsaws are not as cheap as they were 25 years ago! It’s just something I’ve made myself remember to do.

I learned mine the hard way. I started de-tensioning only after I have broken a blade by not doing it. I read from different forum sites and this band saw blog site www.bandsawblog.com about this but just ignored it. Now, I never leave the work area without de-tension!